3/14/2016

As I noted last night, Ben Shapiro and Michelle Fields have resigned from Breitbart.com in protest of the company’s unsupportive attitude after Fields was assaulted by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. (New video, touted by Trumpeters as exonerating Lewandowski, actually makes it clearer than ever that Lewandowski is the one who grabbed Fields’s left arm.)

This morning, news emerges that Breitbart briefly published a piece mocking Shapiro. The piece has been disappeared from Breitbart, but the Web archive link is here, and I have saved a copy here in case the Web archive link goes bad. Samples:

Former Breitbart News editor-at-large Ben Shapiro announced Sunday evening via left-wing Buzzfeed that he is abandoning Andrew Breitbart’s lifelong best friend, widow, hand-picked management team and friends in pursuit of an elusive contributorship at the Fox News Channel.

Friends of Hamas could not be found for comment.

Shapiro, a Harvard lawyer and member of the State Bar of California, apparently violated virtually every clause in his employment contract during an appearance on The Kelly File last Thursday evening.

It was business as usual for the ambitious conservative gadfly, who is known to live on the edge, courting and then leaving a series of companies over the past several years.

. . . .

The story ran next to a photograph of a baby snake hatching from its shell, apparently for emphasis.

“I’m worried. I had enjoyed listening to Ben read Breitbart California stories, word for word, without attribution, on his morning radio show. Now what will he do for content?”

Breitbart News senior management issued a short statement: “Ben’s listicles will be missed.”

The mood was somber at Breitbart News’ Los Angeles office, where one staffer stared silently at promotional copies of Shapiro’s books, left behind on the shelves when the author stopped showing up for work, several years ago.

Alleged Fox News contributor Michelle Fields also resigned.

(Shapiro says he was not trying to get a job at Fox News and that he has “never received” a job from them.)

The unusual piece, which can be read in full here, was even more shocking for Shapiro because it was posted under the pseudonym his father used while writing for the site — William Bigelow.

Shapiro’s father, the writer David Shapiro, also resigned from Breitbart on Sunday evening.

According to the younger Shapiro, his father was hired under the pseudonym to protect his safety since the younger Shapiro said he received so many death threats for his writings.

“Breitbart put this under his byline because they knew I’d have to out him,” Shapiro said in an interview on Monday, adding that by linking to his profile with the California State Bar the site exposed personal information, though that information is outdated. “The fact they would use my father’s pseudonym in order to attack me just exposes how despicable they are.”

It’s . . . hard to disagree with that, isn’t it?

Joel Pollak has taken responsibility for writing the piece:

“The article was written by me as part of an effort to make light of a significant company event, and was published as a result of a misunderstanding without going through the normal editorial channels,” Pollak said. “I apologize to Michelle Fields, my friend Ben Shapiro, and to everyone concerned.”

Ben Shapiro replied:

I don't believe that @joelpollak is a nasty enough human being to write that piece this morning. So I don't believe his statement.

Who exaggerated? She either was assaulted and dragged to the ground or she wasn’t. If you have a new narrative then I think you have to present it and make it known before arguing on behalf of that unknown narrative.

Her posture and facial expression do not change at any time as the entourage passes her so I’ll challenge you to show me one camera shot or video still that shows a mean man assaulting her and trying to drag her to the ground. If there is a fraction of a second in that video where Fields’ isn’t shown and you want to argue that the violent attack happened during that split second, then how do you explain that her facial expression and posture haven’t changed at all when she comes back into view?

She’ll be going to jail for filing a fake police report by the looks of it.

Regardless of whether Michelle Field’s story is exaggerated, the pettiness and juvenile response from Breitbart says much about their character. I remember reading and watching Andrew Breitbart, and his description of what he was trying to do with affecting culture and politics, and I think he would find the website’s behavior in this case completely unacceptable.

I don’t agree, Hoagie. Challenging ourselves and our ideas is what makes us stronger. The alternative — the Democratic way — is to blindly accept the narrative our leaders tell us to follow. That is the path to weakness.

It isn’t a throne, ropelight. We just need Kasich and Rubio to get out of the way.

BTW, even if Trump has more delegates going into the convention than Cruz, you do realize that unless he has 1237 delegates he hasn’t won.

There’s that math thingy again.

So if there’s a brokered convention and Cruz wins the convention he wins. Trump will say he stole it. But an honest man would know unless Trump has 1237 delegates before he has anything to steal. It’s impossible to steal something from someone who hasn’t won it yet.

I canvassed for Cruz, and found it quite illuminating speaking directly with voters one on one. Although it is only anecdotal, in speaking with Trump supporters I would rate the groups in this ascending order: I found very few that would be considered the base (all older, mostly elderly that have voted republican for many years) a slightly higher percentage that I suspected of racism, some leftists, quite a few disaffected democrats, and a plurality that have never voted before (mostly limited education). My impression was that the vast majority were just fed up with the entire situation as it is today, and were extremely tired of hearing how it was all their fault because they were racist white people. In short, Trump definitely tapped into years of built up frustration with the anti PC language, and as a consequence, hardened their attitudes and made them fervent believers in all things Donald. With the supporters of all the other candidates there was at least a cordial exchange of ideas, a willingness for give and take, not one of his could I persuade in any way to even listen to any other viewpoint; their minds were made up, almost like they were victims of Trauma. Those that would speak to me at length would only reiterate the false talking points of Trump in an uninterrupted diatribe, quite a few slammed doors in my face. It was like Breibart’s comments section in the real world. The experience demonstrated quite clearly how a populist demagogue, like Mussolini who Trump reminds me of, could secure a loyal and dedicated following.

It really is a personality cult. It’s clear that Trump doesn’t care about anything but Trump. Jonah Goldberg noted that Hugh Hewitt asked Trump about the nuclear triad months ago on his radio show, and Trump didn’t know what it was. Four months later the question came up during the debate and if anything his answer was even stupider.

It’s clear that Trump hasn’t read any of the plans he has on his website. The Sessions immigration plan? He hasn’t read it because he doesn’t care about doing any of it. It was the only reason to vote for him.

But the Trumpsters don’t need reasons. The Mexicans aren’t going to pay for a wall, which is ok because Trump was never going to build one. It’s just an applause line.

It really is a personality cult. The comparison to Mussolini is apt because Mussolini got voters to support him because he promised to bring back the glory that was Rome. I.E. make Italy great again. Putin’s popularity is sky high because Putin promised to make Russia a great power again, like it was in the heyday of the Soviet Union. Of course there are two kinds of politics in Russia today. TV politics and refrigerator politics. Putin’s fans believe what they see on TV. People who don’t like Putin believe what they see in their refrigerator. Or, rather, what isn’t there. Food. Because the Russian economy is in the toilet. The people who believe what they see on TV always outnumber the people who think.

ropelight, I never said Trump couldn’t end up being the people’s choice. Mussolini and Putin did, so why not Trump.

I was a big fan of Breitbart News. From the beginning, when it was just Big Hollywood at first. It was awesome to watch a counterculture news outlet take on the mainstream and grow and thrive. Thus, it was so sad to see what happened to them this primary season. Clearly there was a decision made to go all in for Trump. At first, I was cool with it, because Trump, imo, needed to be defended. Not so much now.

I think I understand what’s behind this though. Andrew Breitbart championed using the left’s tactics against them. BNN excelled at this as well. The editors at BNN are simply doing the same for their favored candidate that the left media does for theirs. One thing I’m realizing is that the idea of getting down in the gutter with the left is a lot more appealing in theory than in practice.

I always thought the shows Madame Secretary and Commander in Chief were shameless plugs for the wonders of a Hillary administration.
I think that the recent show Lucifer may be the one plugging the Don. “he really wants to be good”

I think I understand what’s behind this though. Andrew Breitbart championed using the left’s tactics against them. BNN excelled at this as well. The editors at BNN are simply doing the same for their favored candidate that the left media does for theirs. One thing I’m realizing is that the idea of getting down in the gutter with the left is a lot more appealing in theory than in practice

19.Regardless of whether Michelle Field’s story is exaggerated, the pettiness and juvenile response from Breitbart says much about their character. I remember reading and watching Andrew Breitbart, and his description of what he was trying to do with affecting culture and politics, and I think he would find the website’s behavior in this case completely unacceptable.
………………………………………………………………………….

I only know them by their work, fields notably at the daily caller, pollak when he followed the trail from derrick bell, also the friends of hamas trail, which predicted how atrocious hagel would be, although carter turned out to be another horseman, altogether, in this administration, one can always go down,

I never post here because I was blocked from posting for saying critical things about Palin last year when the world of conservatives destroyed posters that criticized Palin, but now miraculously they all hate Palin.

But this story shows how Cruz with the kick in the butt of Rube and K-sick will easily defeat Trump and LOL defeat Hillary or Bernie

In order for Cruz to gain Trump’s voter, Cruz should say how much he likes/enjoys Trump as an entertainer. How he agrees with his campaigned talk that opposes BO and Hillary and that as a spokesman/salesman he is charming. But where and when has his actions shown/demonstrated anything opposite of BO of Hillary. A vote for Trump is a vote for BO 2.0

Everyone looks bad in this mess: Breitbart.com should have at the very least said nothing about their former staffers, and Michelle Fields apparently has a history of accusing people, including NYPD cops, of harming her, either physically or in other ways (accusing a fellow journalist of breaking into her computer).

We finally have candidates who aren’t afraid to take hard questions, and in Cruz we have someone who can actually answer hard questions and use them to educate voters snd point out hypocrisy in our opponents. Let’s enjoy that.

22.I don’t agree, Hoagie. Challenging ourselves and our ideas is what makes us stronger. The alternative — the Democratic way — is to blindly accept the narrative our leaders tell us to follow. That is the path to weakness.

You really do have a way of taking everything I post and turning it into an Aesop fable, DRJ. I didn’t say nor did I allude to never challenging each other nor blindly accepting crap like democrats do. I was suggesting that many of us have gone way past an intellectual challenge and rather have begun eating our own and calling fellow Republicans the same names the leftists call us. That’s what I meant. When we started calling each other racists, xenophobic and bigots we began sounding like the enemy.

Her posture and facial expression do not change at any time as the entourage passes her so I’ll challenge you to show me one camera shot or video still that shows a mean man assaulting her and trying to drag her to the ground. If there is a fraction of a second in that video where Fields’ isn’t shown and you want to argue that the violent attack happened during that split second, then how do you explain that her facial expression and posture haven’t changed at all when she comes back into view?

She’ll be going to jail for filing a fake police report by the looks of it.

Jcurtis (5bde7f) — 3/14/2016 @ 8:48 am

Except, her posture and facial expression DO change when he walks by! How can you not see that? Nobody said she was being dragged to the ground. She said she was yanked down and almost lost her balance, which is plausible based on the video evidence.

She walked up to Trump to ask him a question, and was violently pulled back, leaving bruises.

A) Even if she was wrong about who grabbed her, she won’t be going to jail for filing a fake police report. They would have to prove she knowingly lied about what happened, and there is no evidence of that. An attack DID happen, so even if she was wrong about who, there still is an attack.

Leviticus, that photoshop job which you linked (#42) gives Trump waaaay too much of his own hair beneath the top of his head where his orange fiberglass helmet is normally attached. He only does the comb-over, like all men, out of a vain desire to hide his baldness.

To me, actually, the comb-over is symbolic of Trump’s entire phony persona. He’s exactly as good a businessman, exactly as good a man, as that comb-over is a good hairstyle. Which is to say: Everything about him, and it, is wildly dishonest.

Kobeclan, I assume — but I’m just guessing — that the reason Heidi Cruz hasn’t quit her job is because she enjoys it and needs the income it provides. She obviously had to work very hard to prepare for that job and to gain the position within the company that she’s earned. And she has clients — individuals trying to invest their wealth for its preservation and growth, which has the fortunate side effect of raising capital that in turn provides other jobs and creates economic wealth — who don’t want to lose her.

The Cruz family is not wealthy. He made a nice income during his brief return to private practice before running for Senate, but otherwise he and Bernie Sanders have the same income, and it’s not in the top 1%.

By every report, Heidi Cruz is a brilliant and talented investment advisor. The company for which she works, while controversial and a source of derision for extremists on both the far right and the far left, is objectively one of the most successful and well-managed businesses of its sort in the world. She doesn’t have more than a tiny, tiny vote within its vast and vastly richer owner-managers.

Why haven’t you quit your job, whatever it may be? I suspect it’s the same answer that Heidi would give.

This is trolling, actually, because I’m quite sure you know all this, and you’re just waiting for someone like me to respond to it so you can cut-and-paste some diatribe. Well, have at it, but don’t expect to persuade anyone.

I mean, I can see an argument that *if Sen. Cruz is elected*, there’s a risk of real problems with the wife of the President working in the private sector. But while he’s a Senator? Or even while he’s a presidential candidate? I don’t see it.

Let me add one more thing, Kobeclan, regarding Heidi Cruz and her job:

Only the very dim and naive think that a company like Goldman Sachs could control someone like Heidi Cruz through her job. She could walk out and take her clients with her to any of a half-dozen other companies who wouldn’t try to pull any strings, and not lose a dime of compensation.

I suspect that the answer to your question — which you think is “obvious” if someone has the “courage” to recognize it — will be something like, “It’s so Goldman Sachs can control the Presidency of the United States through the President’s spouse.” That’s a kindergartener’s view — and a pretty stupid kindergartener, at that — about how the world works.

However, lemme ask you this: Are you stupid enough to believe that President Trump would be truly “blind” to the properties and assets that he promises he’ll put into a “blind trust” to be run by his kids?!? If so, you’re a perfect example of a Trump sucker.

Since you seem to be so concerned with why Mrs Cruz did not quit her job, explain to us the importance of her doing so. This is a simple request, just asking for clarification. Please make us understand why this gets you so riled up that you spam it across many sites.

A.R.: That’s incredibly vague and naive (#90). Trump is a creature of the left. He’s only pretending to be a Republican, and if you look at his life-long positions and views, and the politicians to whom he’s mostly contributed, it’s absolutely clear that he’s a typical New York limousine liberal. You’re being suckered. The only good thing I can say for you, as compared to many other pro-Trump commenters here, is that you seem to be fairly simple-natured about it, and there’s not much risk that you’ll be able to help Trump con anyone else among the simple-minded, angry, and naive.

#56, Hoagie, they don’t see it, and they won’t look. They’re convinced thier cause is right, even if they have to resort to misrepresentation, petty invective, name calling and all the other staples of blind political partisanship. The ends justify their excessive means.

It’s their way, all day and all night. And, how dare former friends insist on deviating from the accepted dogma. Turncoats must be fixed, attacked, ganged up on, and dismissed as insane, stupid, or evil, which ever seem appropriate at the moment.

This is exceedingly rich — another Trumpbot arrives to preach to us about Saint Donald the Corruptor, self-proclaimed briber of politicians, for whom Kobeclan thinks we ought to vote in order to stop public corruption.

I can’t imagine any more vivid or powerful way to self-identify as a sucker.

Long time ago in Chicago I was “somebody’s somebody.
Not only own a copy of the Democrat playbook but helped write it.
If anybody is interested, we told you what’s gonna happen to Cruz.
Might want to check out what happened to Barack Hussein the 1st’s
first two opponents.

Best way I know to guarantee Hillary’s victory is for the GOP to nominate an ineligible Cuban/Canadian candidate, get ready for the November election and run headlong into the inevitable challenge based on the Constitution’s native born requirement.

The challenge may not be enough to sway all the GOP voters, but enough of them will read the Constitutional restrictions and conclude that Cruz in ineligible. Then where will you be?

So what was ur question?
That if I disagree with you, I am a concern troll?

Any lawyers out there wanna know what’s gonna happen to Cruz if he gets the nomination?
Democrat playbook, Chapter 5. Wait til the nomination process is closed.
PLEASE research what happened to BH1’s first to elective opponents!!
Think hot Borg chicks!!

AR – had he not been a vocal supporter of single payer, heaped praise on ObamaCare, has a fundamental disdain for the 1st Amendment, and actively supported a who’s who of leftist politicos by word and checkbook, maybe we could take your theory will a couple pounds less of grains of salt.

A.R., I don’t generally bother to click links to youtube videos unless I’m referred to them by someone whose judgment I trust, which trust you’ve yet to earn. You might want to provide some summary here if you want anyone to follow your links.

But there is no “paradigm” in which I change any of my views about Donald Trump. I’ve known everything I need to know about him, and more, going back to the 1980s and early 1990s, when I became acquainted with Trump’s sorry, squalid reputation in the business world.

We know Obama first back-stabbed the person who let him have a run at her elected position, having her thrown out of the race by contesting signatures at the last moment with no time for recourse.
We also know Obama won his senate seat by having confidential divorce documents unsealed, causing a scandal for the R that was going to beat him.

What does that have to do with anything?

We know the Dems will do dirty tricks no matter who the R is , so we’re not worrying about it.

This is real simple,
people who are mad at the system are for Trump.
Why are people mad at the system?
Because they say one thing to get elected than do another thing after elected,
such as Rubio who can’t even win his home state, it seems.

So, the answer is to:
ignore what someone has said and done their entire life, and believe what they have said the last 6 months…

We told U what we are gonna do. Scalia’s death sealed the deal. The local lawsuits against Cruz is the setup. You think the Supreme Court is gonna screw up and do the right thing again? With Scalia we had a chance. Some federal judge is gonna declare Cruz ineligible. 4 prog judges are gonna agree and Scalia is gone so 4-4. Lower court decision to make Cruz ineligible stands. Where am I wrong, all U lawyers out there??

Trump recognizes this because, unlike most people, he’s quite well versed in classic history and not indoctrinated into the flat-out impossibility of egalitarianism.

Perhaps, because Trump recognizes this, he sees it as a prime opportunity to talk a bunch of people into supporting him on the basis of no evidence, (in fact, in spite of much available evidence) only words.

I am just saying there is a lot more to being a good candidate than a salesman bloviating what some people want to hear.
I have no problem with people liking some of what Trump has said,
but it makes no sense to be mad about people saying one thing and doing another
and then expecting trump’s past behavior to be ignored because of him saying something else for the last 6 months.

Trump does not look like he can beat Clinton,
and even if he does, he will be a lousy president, a megalomaniac like Obama, just not a leftist one, but an “all-over-the-map” one.

You really do have a way of taking everything I post and turning it into an Aesop fable, DRJ. I didn’t say nor did I allude to never challenging each other nor blindly accepting crap like democrats do. I was suggesting that many of us have gone way past an intellectual challenge and rather have begun eating our own and calling fellow Republicans the same names the leftists call us. That’s what I meant. When we started calling each other racists, xenophobic and bigots we began sounding like the enemy.

I’m not trying to misconstrue or mischaracterize your comments. I thought I was responding in good faith to your point so we could discuss it. I consider that a sign of respect. Now that I know you don’t take it that way, I will stop responding.

I tried. Spent 12 years living a block from the UIC Pavilion.
No man is as blind as that man who refuses to see.
Just wanna know what all U lawyers gonna say ’bout why I am wrong.
I was born a democrat, was raised a democrat, and I will die a democrat.
Can never be a member of the stupid party. That being said, last democrat I voted for was Zell Miller for governor when I was living in Georgia.
Make sure U get back to me when Billary is sworn in.

Cruz needs to take a pilgrim to Tennessee to work on his “aww shucks”. Start at Graceland for some flash. Head on to Lewisburg to grab Fred Thomson’s old pickup truck and end up in Maryville to borrow Lamar’s red plaid shirt.

135. Call me 235 of 61! Made my day.
Chapter 12 of the Democrat playbook; Republicans are stupid.
Nothing on this thread has disproved that.
Actually put my life in jeopardy. Hopefully anyone I’m worried about is dead or in jail!
Going swimming.
Maybe the stupid party can run Mitch or McCain or Dole again.
Or Bush the 1st!! Still can serve one more term!

JD, it’s not that she has a job, it’s that she works for those international bankersrootless cosmopolitans globalists at Goldman Sachs. AR is probably also concerned about the Council for Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission and the New World Order and all those other shibboleths of the loony so-called “right”.

If you want people to vote for you, campaign for their votes. Saying that their votes are determined by their melanin count, and that they should have been kept out because of their melanin count, is by definition racist.

So our Doyen was not made to hit the floor and mangled under the weight of a Misogynist?

LOL, so some dude pushed her out of the way and did so by grabbing her arm firmly. Usually an apology suffices but most reporters a few years back would have used this as bona fides to how good they are.

Now they play snowflakes.

… can’t wait for this to be Cruz v Trump so the idiotic Cruz and idiotic Trump fan bois can have their say based on results. Cuz all this baiting and victim hustling makes me sick.

Why am I arguing with an admitted racist? I’m stopping now. I’m just going to keep reminding people that AR is an actual genuine 24-karat racist, a reminder that however much the left sling that word around it hasn’t lost all meaning, that however many people are falsely accused of racism the genuine article still exists.

#168 JD, please, the narrative was she was assaulted violently and almost thrown to the floor and if not for her superb athletic prowess she would have likely hit the floor and broken her hip. I know BULL SHIT when I hear it / read it — and the this story spun out of control based on FAN BOIs of each side. The same BS I loathe of the Left on full display on the right. So “nobody claimed” it is at best a defense for an individual but not for the narrative fabricated by the enemies of Trump. So you want to go ahead and say you personally did not say it, ok, but the Anti Trump FAN BOIs with pom-poms and “I hate Trump” signs clearly turned this into something it was not.

I’m fortunate I live in an area where it’s easy to tell who is hard-working and who isn’t, who has good judgment and who doesn’t, and who has character and who doesn’t. It isn’t the color of their skin that tells us that.

Well no, the color of a person’s skin—nor their deferentially-distributed behavior-impacting genes—can tell you what behavior a person is doing. Only their behavior can. (However, that statistically and predictably differs between groups.)

I assume you meant to say a person’s skin “… cannot tell you what behavior a person is doing.” But your statement in parenthesis negates that sentiment, so apparently you do believe that skin color can be a “predictable” indicator of behavior.

Heading into the pool. JD. Still have the same question.
Why didn’t Heide quit her job?
Why didn’t Sen. Cruz resign to run for president?
Power corrupts. Once U get that taste, it’s hard to give it up.
To paraphrase a much better man than me, “I disagree with everything U have to say, but I will defend to my death UR right to say it”. The UR is for Beldar.
Had men die in my arms for people like y’all.
Wonder if any of U would do the same for me.

Why should they? None of the other candidates, or their spouses, have quit their jobs. Nor did any of the candidates or their spouses the last few times. The only people I can think of who did so were the Doles.

MD. I owe ur favorite charity $100. I’ll check back on this thread unless Ald. Roti’s people track me down. Let me know what it is. Something to help Christians from being crucified in the Middle East would be great!
We’re gonna do the same thing to Cruz. It’s in our nature.

181. It’s called morality, ethics, principle, the right thing to do, all those things most of us have forgotten exist. Maybe U can get a job suppressing bimbo eruptions not that George Stephanoupolus is busy.

“It’s hard *not* to look at the movement supporting Mr. Trump and see really terrible things.”

aphrael (e0cdc9) — 3/14/2016 @ 2:21 pm

Interested in knowing what your take is on the criminality, illegal use of cabinet position for personal enrichment, etc. of Hillary Clinton and the outdated tribalism, victimhood, envy, class warfare strategy employed by Sanders. Are you okay with all of that? Only some of that?

I understand most blacks vote for Obama. I get that polls say Hispanics nationwide care about amnesty. All I’m saying is that I live in a place where race doesn’t seem to correlate to values. I know people who are white, black, Asian and Hispanic who vote Republican and who believe in God, family and the Second Amendment. I feel fortunate to live in a place like that.

Freedom, jobs and opportunity are like magnets that bring people to my area, but it also lifts those people up. Some stay here and some go back to where they came from, but all end up with greater skills, assets and abilities. It doesn’t have to be a zero sum game as you posit.

A.R., is providing folks a lesson in reasoning. It is not well received I see

DRJ, I would like to know how many blacks where you lived voted Obama. How on earth did you find them?

I know of one in my group of friends but that is still 1 of maybe 50/60.

Look, facts remain facts in spite of how much folks want to dispute them and it is true that Race drives Voting Patterns even if there are exceptions to generalized rule

In future, who knows but these types of societal numbers change over time and they change because that group feels a vested interest in doing so. Like Southern Democrats becoming Republicans over time and Northern Republicans becoming Democrats.

A.R., #213 Commandment number 9 pretty much summarizes the fact this has always existed. With respect to Capitalism and Freedom, they beat the alternative by a mile. Anyone with History in Leftist Countries understand this so simply and clearly.

It is the foggy headed Graduate Degree Class that does not understand. It is also this Class which poisons people against each other with appeals to jealousy. That is the central hallmark to socialism, pure jealousy which then used to divide and conquer. It is fundamentally evil system even if capitalism is “unfair” to those less deserving of the fruits of the system.

aphrael, I see the people you describe pointing at the Trump supporters and saying “see” as those who always point at any Republican with the same charges. Trump is just their latest excuse for branding us bigots. And when you say it’s hard not to see “really terrible things” you should be looking at those supporting Sanders and Hillary! Under that cute little ole man façade lies the hateful heart of a communist. Those two are the ones who pose the threat not a buffoon like Trump. People who support commies support “really terrible things” and all they need do is look back 80 years.

Trump hit on an open sore in America: immigration. We have an immigration problem and any time anybody mentions it they’re called racist. Just look at this thread. Trump picked at this sore and the people responded to the years of lies about immigration from both parties. They’re tired of the lies about the border, the actual numbers of illegal and legal immigrants and the lies about their suppose “assimilation”. They’re tired about the lies when the government allows millions of economically low end immigrants in and they either take the low end jobs from Americans or worse live off our taxes. They’re tired about the never-built wall. And now they’re tired about phony “refugees” and moslem terrorist imports. I bet if there were a million grade A lawyers coming into America every year to practice law instead of grape pickers the politicians would be tripping all over each other to “stop the illegals”, no wall too high!

But these racist pro-immigrationists don’t care that previous immigrants and African Americans are being replaced on the job by low pay fresh illegals. There was a time we could absorb a million people but those days are gone. Plus, you can’t have immigration in a welfare state. Finally, there seems to be some sort of conspiracy to immigrate only people from non-white countries. Almost as if someone were “stacking the deck” against a white culture. Now why would that be? But if anyone says these things Bam! they’re racist. Well guess what? Trump says them. And people are listening.

217.DRJ, you mention above that you know many blacks that live “in your area” that voted Obama. I am curious how many.

I don’t talk politics that much in my real life — I save it for online — so it’s a small sample: Maybe 6-7, with a similar number of white and Hispanic friends. (There aren’t many Asians in my area but the ones I know all voted Republican.)

If you want something more substantial, the election results for my county and the nearby counties show there are more black voters than there were total votes for Obama in 2008 and 2012 by a factor of approximately 8:1 and 6:1. Thus, even if every single Obama vote was cast by a black voter in 2008 and 2012 (which is unlikely, since there were probably some Hispanics and whites who voted for Obama), then 1 out of every 6-8 black voters didn’t vote for Obama.

186 Either race is predictive of behavior or it isn’t. You say it doesn’t predict one person’s behavior but it is predictive of group behavior. Isn’t that what you are saying?

It predicts individual behavior in a statistical sense. Consider auto insurance. Auto insurance companies charge men higher rates than women because men are more likely to get into auto accidents. Of course an individual man may get into fewer accidents than an individual woman in any given year but as you look at larger and larger groups of men and women it becomes less and less likely than the male group will be in fewer accidents than the female group.

mister happyfeet, apparently Paul Ryan grows a beard at the same time every year for hunting season, when he knows he’s going to spend a lot of time out of doors in the cold. He doesn’t want to end up like Leo Di Caprio, shivering his timbers in the bear movie.

Kasich & Rubio are now making noises to the effect that they might not support Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee.

I’m not going to argue with anyone who’s pledged #NeverTrump. I’m not one; I will cast a meaningful ballot against the Democratic Party’s nominee, and the only way to do that is to vote for the Republican nominee — even if I despise him, even if I think he’s equally as evil and venal as the Democrat.

But Rubio & Kasich have, like Cruz, formally pledged to the party and to the American public that they would support the GOP nominee. Voters may — indeed, they should — have factored that pledge into votes that have already been cast in detrimental reliance on the pledge.

Of course, Trump also took that pledge — not that his word means anything to anyone, including his own befuddled supporters, who never flinch when he breaks his promises or reverses himself like a spinning top).

If Kasich & Rubio both recognize Trump’s unfitness, but they want to avoid making a solemn pledge like this to the American public, they should have put their own massive egos behind them and taken a hard look at reality about two or three weeks ago. And they should have dropped out.

Ah, damn. Massive editing error made a sentence in the next-to-last paragraph above mean something completely different than I intended. It ought to have read:

If Kasich & Rubio both recognize Trump’s unfitness, but they want to avoid makingbreaking a solemn pledge like this to the American public, they should have put their own massive egos behind them and taken a hard look at reality about two or three weeks ago. And they should have dropped out.

Well, I frankly don’t think there can be any justification for them breaking the pledge, aphrael. They haven’t learned anything of consequence about Trump in the last three weeks. Has anyone?

They stand on a different footing than you, me, the readers of this blog, or the rest of the American public, because none of us has given a solemn public pledge with the intention that it be relied upon by the public in making voting decisions that can’t, now, be undone.

They’re just proving they never were sincere in the first place. It makes me think poorly of them, because once again it demonstrates that they’re not acting in the first instance out of concern for the public, but rather out of ambition.

What you said. With a couple of exclamation points.
If either Rubio or Kasich really means “Never Trump,” then they should have each gotten the heck out of the race a couple weeks ago so that everyone can coalesce behind Ted.
I’m also with you in that I will vote for Bugs Bunny or Betty Boop if it means keeping the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave out of the hands of Hillary.

“Support,” by the way, could still be demonstrated meaningfully enough by a one-sentence tweet that doesn’t even refer to Trump by name, but that simply says: “I support and intend to vote for the Republican nominee.”

I don’t expect Ted Cruz to go out and campaign for Trump if Trump were to get the nomination. That would surprise me, because it would be beyond the boundaries of the pledge as given.

Again a case of Republicans saying one thing then doing another. While reneging they make the buffoon look like the only one who keeps his word. Is there any wonder people follow him with clowns like this?

Beldar, your “massive ego” provided the needed context, and I thought “you’ve got that right.” But for Rubio and Kasich to have come to the right conclusion a few weeks ago (ego or not) would require them to have some abilities at thinking beyond the first step, Sowell’s “but then what happens.” We are ruled by a class of politicians who won’t even acknowledge that the second step exists.

The fact that Kasich & Rubio are waffling doesn’t put them on any kind of moral plane with Trump, who’s a genuinely pathological liar and narcissist.

But it puts them a step lower in my estimation of their integrity as compared to any moral person’s expectations, and I’d be disappointed in Ted Cruz were he to join them.

Now, Ted Cruz did say today, IIRC, that he might revisit his pledge if Donald Trump were to shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. I suppose someone could link the Jim Carey Dumb & Dumber clip — “So you’re saying there’s a chance!” — but I believe Cruz was joking, and in effect thereby reconfirming the solemnity with which he took the vow to begin with.

I think it is a little early to concede the nomination to Trump. Less than half the delegates have been awarded to date, and Trump’s margin is a small fraction of the votes for candidates who will drop out very soon. So these hypotheticals are constructed on a very weak foundation … a bunch of polls that have rarely predicted the result within the anticipated uncertainty. The turnouts for these primaries are usually little more than swamp vapors. If the core of the Party gets off its rear end and simply votes at levels befitting a presidential election, they could still give the nomination to Cruz.

AR – tell us a topic that Trump has not waffled on. He had a lifetime of support for leftism, and now has a sudden change of heart, throws out ridiculous narratives, which he immediately backtracks from, yet you sycophants hold him up as some paragon of virtue. It is insane.

Patton, under MacArthur’s overall command, did indeed order six battle tanks to charge on the U.S. military veterans who comprised the “Bonus Army” in Washington in 1932. It was the most shameful incident of his career, and it helped lead to FDR’s electoral victory.

But yeah, if you want to fantasize that Donnie Trump — with his high school diploma from the military school to which he was sent as a disciplinary problem by his rich daddy — is somehow comparable to George Patton, knock yourself out. Me, I think Trump wouldn’t have been able to avoid combat in WW2 based on his imaginary bone spur in — which ankle was it? I think Trump would have been one of the kind of soldier whom Patton got in trouble for slapping.

AR – Trump should explain to us the principles behind his epiphany then. Fact is, he speaks conservative about as well as Romney tried to. you have made no case for changing ones principles, beyond your fear of increasing numbers of brown people. Others cite anger. How about some first principles? Fact is Trump can’t even describe the Sessions immigration plan he co-opted. And has all but acknowledged that is the starting point for him to negotiate downward from there. You all bought snake oil and are embarrassed to admit it.

these two candidates not keeping their word about the pledge puts in real stark relief the GOP candidates’ penchant for lying to primary voters about important things like immigration then screwing them when they get to the White House or Congress.

A made man who left the mob without going into WPP.
Said he’s put his faith in God and is still alive.
Says Goodfellas is close to real thing.
I agree. But I was always “Traveler”.
Or “Cincinnati”. Depending on wether ur a Yankee or a Rebel.

One thing about “trollish” behavior, the comments are scattered like birdshot, goalposts moved as often as a practice soccer net,
all together makes attempted discussion an exrecise in wasted time,
unless you enjoy it

That strict interpretation of words on paper is where it’s at. Vs., say, I don’t know—struggle between peoples, the march of technology, epigenetic effects of the changing environment on people’s biology, and so on.

Like Gerald, I have no idea what that means. Good effort at explaining away his transformation for support of leftist causes though. You only touched on one, shockingly, the one that resonates with you. But being a reactionary doesn’t show how the underlying principles changed.

Kobeclan – since we know it’s what you want, until you answer those 2 specific questions, your nonsense and taunting will be in moderation. You are in no way banned, but you have posted 57 variations of the exact same comment in this thread alone. Answer them, then back to your normal trolling.

I understand now why Dyogenes was so frustrated.
So hard to find an honest man. I give up!!
The difference between quitting G-S and taking a leave of absence was $2,500,000 in 2014.
Can only imagine what It will be this year!!

Hey, pinandpuller, my daughter’s mother was certified by both Janet Reno and John Ashcroft as vital to the national interest. My mother was a Teamster and there were men who wanted her job but they couldn’t take it from her because she did it better than any of them. Not every woman is some silicone golddigger looking for a badgerheaded sugar-daddy.

“Please allow me to masturbate myself
I’m a fan of wealth and bad taste
I’ve been around this blog for far too long
Stole many a man’s time and day
And I was ’round when Donald Trump
Had his farcical sad campaign
Made damn sure that JD
Threw me out and sealed my fate
squeezed teh meat you
Musta guessed my name
But what’s confuzzling you
Is the nature of my game”

The idea that Mrs Cruz is Sen Cruz’s bagman is laughable. I was really hoping you had something interesting to add, some insight we had never considered. DailyKos spittle is a waste of pixels.

Riddle me this – if Mrs Cruz’s 2.5M that she earned, which you pulled from your arse, concerns yo sooooooooo much, I am sure that you are 10x as concerned with all the Wall St filthy lucre that the Clintons have scavenged from those evil capitalists. Amirite?!

Back in 1997 I made a prediction in my book The Dilbert Future that seems to be coming true. It stated:

In the future, the media will kill famous people to generate news that people will care about. – The Dilbert Future (May 1997)

Three months later, the media chased Princess Di into a tunnel and created a dangerous situation that killed her but was terrific for television news ratings. The media didn’t plot to kill anyone, but they created a situation that made it likely someone important would die because of the way their business model works. That was the basis for my prediction.

Fast-forward to today and we see the media priming the public to try to kill Trump, or at least create some photogenic mayhem at a public event. Again, no one is sitting in a room plotting Trump’s death, but – let’s be honest – at least half of the media believes Trump is the next Hitler, and a Hitler assassination would be morally justified. Also great for ratings. The media would not be charged with any crime for triggering some nut to act. There would be no smoking gun. No guilt. No repercussions. Just better ratings and bonuses all around. . . .

I could go on, but you see how easy this is. The mainstream media can either portray Trump as Hitler or non-Hitler. So far, they have chosen (subconsciously I assume) the Hitler analogy all the way.”

All of that for that????
That was about as big as a disclosure as jeri ryan.

Trump is a joke,
Sanders is a joke,
that he is a serious candidate pushing a failed ideology makes him a sick joke
that a liar like H. Clinton is a serious candidate is an obscene joke

I don’t get the trollish point
You don’t want us to vote for Cruz?
That is about as convincing as being told to open the door to the basement in a horror movie, why would one want to listen to that?

So because Mrs. Cruz is accomplished and actually making a lot of money as a valuable employee,
that is supposed to be a turnoff and make us vote for someone who started out with many millions and has taken his companies through bankruptcy 4 times??
that doesn’t make any sense either.

What really doesn’t make sense is wasting anymore time with this.
Other than the opportunity to hang out with the friends among us.

What remains astounding to me is that traditional Conservatives think as 15% of the population at the outside might lead America to restoration.

Sorry that you have frayed around the edges over time,
but
what are you talking about and what do you think the alternative is?
Are you upset because we haven’t built our bunkers yet and stored our gold and ammo?

It may be that our country has already received the death blow and all that is left is for the body to hit the ground no matter what we do,
does that make you happy or reassure you?

Trump is not going to help, at least not except by some quirk of fate or accident.

I have said before and will say again,
it will be a miracle if Cruz could win,
it would be a second miracle if he could use the presidential bully pulpit to educate the American public as to what the Constitution says, what it means, how things have been messed up, and the advantages of trying to stick to it.
Whether we are talking about 1.5%, 15%, or 55% of the public.

What are you folks trying to argue for? That Trump will win a general election and move the country in a good direction??
You are either delusional or live in CO and up on a mountain smoking “good stuff”.
G’night.

351. The idea that has caught my attention is that we are nearing the end of an economic era that was acknowledged, already in swing, by Bretton Woods, after the replacement of the British pound as our global currency standard.

Globalization, automation and technologic advances have enriched our standard of life at the same time as obviating our productivity in the workplace.

Thus the loss of jobs worldwide. Yesterday 100s of thousands of miners rioted in NE China, many laid off but the bulk unpaid for months. Here in the US more than 40% of the able-bodied are on disability, unemployment or food stamps and government revenues are off 5% and climbing as measured by tax withholding and refunds. The instantiation of negative interest rates is an admission that the future is similarly bleak.

Constitutional Conservatism would be a fine thing if it were a regime for what ails. Its like vitamins and exercise for a victim of sloth, whereas the patient is in the ICU with no blood pressure.

DNF,
would you stop complaining and forecasting doom for one fricking second and say what you think we ought to do?
Or are we just to lay down and wait to die?
Or do you seriously think Trump will do something?
Or are you waiting for an iron fist to take over and hope it is not a communist iron fist?

The 100-meter really annoys me. You practice the 100-yard dash all your life and then they throw in an extra nine plus yards for no reason at all. (Not that I can run either anymore but it’s the principle of the thing.)

people’s interests either move them closer to truth and faith in the one True God or not,
and race makes no difference,
personal responsibility, respect for personal property, belief in the innate dignity of human beings,
and the ideas that flow from those basic beliefs are what is important, no matter the color
perhaps that is why God spoke to us principally in His intervention in the Middle east, at the convergence of white Brown black and whatever

372. There is no path to Not-Trump saving your precious status quo for makeover.

The political rioting will continue to increase, the stock market will crash, energy companies and those connected to them will go bankrupt by the thousands, banks will fail, etc. All to a degree worse than 2009. It will all be blamed on Trump but without effect.

What Trump will do is of interest, but no one on the scene is prepared to deal with the consequences.

So you have no idea what the truth is, all you know is I am wrong.
The old time Chicago politicians and mobsters would be embarrassed to use family like Ted uses Heidi.
Times have changed. Bill used Hillary. Obama used Michelle (no show job at U of Chicago).
And a 30+ woman with two young children is pulling a 7 figure income on Wall Street.
Takes a leave of absence so she gets her bonus for doing nothing other than being a senator’s and possibly a president’s wife. And y’all say no big deal. Amazing!

Actually I support Cruz. I’m worried Trump will realize he is gonna be our next president and find “wedding ninjas” threatening his family. Just want you all to realize Cruz is just another politician. Can be bought and sold like all the rest. Just better than any democrat. No more. No less. Just hope he understands the next election is a one issue election.
Immigration is the only issue. All other issues are secondary to that.
You sneak in, you get to stay is not a policy, it’s a death sentence for the middle class.

And please accept my apology to all. I just got annoyed nobody would answer a question my 13 y/o godson knew the answer to.
We all have a lot at stake in this election.
We just all need to know what our real choices are.
As scared as anybody else right now.

400. And this is absolutely what we must plan for, Europe in full-blown class war; Japan, finally, after a quarter century of deflation hits the wall running NIRP and QE simultaneously; Brazil in catastrophic depression, worse than Greece; China with riots in the hundreds of thousands and only Nationalism to divert them; Turkey and Saudi Arabia at war with Iran, all of these and more developing as we clickety-clack.

Western culture, Churchill might say, is the worst except for all the others, it has been the only one where consent of the people has been maintained for any real interval, yes it has it’s flaws hence the caveat.

Last comment for the night…
Six months ago I would have never expected Cruz to be in the race,
Looking at who is left, I am confident he is the best person by far to be president,
Does that mean I am confident he will win?
Not at all

Some trust in princes or chariots,
We will trust in the Lord our God
Should He choose not to save us,
That is up to Him
But I will not bow down to the proud and arrogant for deliverance.

Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss, and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

Remember The Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you –
That lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.

You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore, make peace with your god,
Whatever you perceive him to be – hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.
Give up!

Holocaust survivor Israel Kristal was confirmed by Guinness World Records on Friday as the planet’s oldest living man, having graced the earth for 112 years and 178 days.

“I don’t know the secret for long life,” Kristal, who lives in Haifa, Israel, told Guinness. “I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men than me who are no longer alive.”

But few men have lived through so much tumult and turmoil.

Born Sept. 15, 1903, in what was then Russian-occupied Poland, Kristal survived World War I despite being separated from his parents.

Kristal was living in the city of Lodz with his wife, Chaja Feige, and their two kids when World War II erupted and they were forced by the Germans into a Jewish ghetto.

Four years later, Kristal and his family was sent to Auschwitz. Only he survived. He weighed just 82 pounds when he was liberated by the Allies.

In 1950, Kristal and his second wife and son left Poland for Israel, where he owned and operated a candy business.

I have had discussions with friends over the last 30 years about how atypical life in the US has been in the history of mankind, yet we have learned to take it for granted, and to complain about conditions that most of the world would envy (section 8 housing and food stamps even).

That is why I have always looked to examples like Corrie ten Boom, “every day people” who lived out their faith in the midst of terrible times.

But if there happens to be an election before the mountains crash into the heart of the sea, I will vote for the person I think is best,
Just like I stop at a stop sign,
It may not change the world, but it was the right thing to do at the time.

I think you’re insinuating that a lot of “Trumpsters” would stay home on that special Tuesday in November, if he were not the nominee.
That’s the effing problem.
The “Trumpsters” are not exactly anti-Left or anti-Hillary so much as they are sycophants of The Donald. It’s a cult of personality.

But those of us are passionately anti-Left will come out to vote for whomever the nominee is just so that we can defeat Hillary.

But what difference does it make, DNF, if the Republican turnout is low if it is not Trump? The scenario you describe will be utterly beyond what Hillary or Sanders could cope with. They are not to be feared in crisis, it will manage them.

But those of us are passionately anti-Left will come out to vote for whomever the nominee is just so that we can defeat Hillary

That’s why all the commotion about Trump vs Cruz, or Cruz vs Rubio, or Rubio vs Trump, yadda-yadda, sort of passes me by. I just can’t get as passionate about the shortcomings of any of the Republicans—and they definitely have them, with the left-leaning flakiness of Trump, Rubio and, most certainly, Kasich at the top of my bleech list) as I get about the horrific liberal lunacy and gut-wrenching dishonesty of Hillary Clinton.

The difference between quitting G-S and taking a leave of absence was $2,500,000 in 2014.

Does anyone know what this is supposed to mean? GS paid $2.5M to people who were on unpaid leave?! In what? Bonuses? That doesn’t seem plausible. If you didn’t work how could you have earned a bonus? Before I was annoyed but now I’m curious. And this isn’t something you can google; what search terms would you use?

Races are real—although an imprecise concept. I like people of all races (I’m mixed race personally). Denying reality doesn’t make you a better person, it makes you a less informed person, less able (or willing) to understand the world.

A.R. (688974) — 3/14/2016 @ 3:04 pm

Human races are not real in any scientific sense. Take any two human beings, as dissimilar as possible, and you will find:

There’s more genetic diversity within a group of chimps on a single hillside in Gomba than in the entire human species.

The fact is, genetic studies show we human beings are too closely related to have any meaningful distinctions such as sub species, breeds, or races. Such groupings are entirely artificial and made up. By any reasonable measure, race is not biologically real, rather it is a political or social construct:

Although there are differences in proportions of alleles [variant form of a gene used to track populations] in those races usually recognised in contemporary western social discourse (folk‐racial categories), these differences are no more biologically significant than are the genetic differences that exist between populations that are not socially recognised as races (populations that do not correspond to folk‐racial categories). This implies that whatever average genetic differences exist between the populations called ‘races’ in ordinary social discourse, those genetic differences are not what account for the folk‐racial categories in use today. Despite recent research sometimes taken to imply otherwise, folk‐racial categories – which remain of fundamental importance to people’s life‐prospects – remain social categories and not biological categories.

Beldar, if you make a foolish pledge to do something wrong, should you compound your foolishness by doing it?! I don’t think so. Doing something that you know is wrong, just because you promised to do it, strikes me as arrogance, putting your word above your conscience. Better to just admit that you were wrong to have made the pledge, and do the right thing.

“Richard Bertrand Spencer (born May 11, 1978) is an American writer, publisher, activist and self-described “identitarian” known for promoting white supremacist views.[1][2][3] He is president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think-tank, and Washington Summit Publishers, an independent publishing firm. Both institutions have issued studies of culture, society, nationalism, eugenics, and the study of race and intelligence.

“Spencer advocates for a white homeland for a “dispossessed white race” and calls for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” to halt the “deconstruction” of European culture.[4][5][6]”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It’s from one of the greatest documents ever created by mankind. It is admired throughout the world and has inspired a hundred nations or more (once upon a time, it even inspired the creation of the greatest nation the earth has ever seen.)

Donald, having denounced Duke repeatedly in the past, including recently, and immediately after that show had—when asked about Duke in conjunction with several other groups that were unnamed save one—said he’d like to look at the list before deciding who to denounce on this occasion)

That is not what happened. There was no list of groups; he was specifically asked about Duke and other white supremacists, and he pretended not to know anything about Duke or white supremacists.

Race obviously does exist. Just look around you and you can see it. And obviously genes do affect behavior; they don’t determine it in any one individual, but they load the dice and make certain decisions more probable than others, so that if you test a large and randomly selected sample you’ll see a predictable pattern. That’s not racism, it’s just common sense.

But to claim that race determines people’s voting decisions (rather than merely being temporarily correlated with something else that does so), so that we can use skin color to predict a generation in advance how people will vote, and further to claim that we ought to game future elections by adjusting the racial mix in the population, goes well beyond common sense and right into racial bigotry.

For one thing, genes affect tastes and abilities, not conscious decisions such as political opinions. People with similar genes will tend to like the same music, the same art, the same food, the same colors and styles of clothing, but there doesn’t seem to be any such effect on opinions; those come from the environment, not from heredity. Black people didn’t always vote Democrat; that they do now in such overwhelming numbers has many reasons, but genetics isn’t one of them.

And immigrants as a class don’t even share genes, so the whole concept is ridiculous. No cohort of immigrants can tell us anything about the next one, which will by definition be composed of different people.

Don’t take my word for it, check my sources, research yourself. You will notice that modern science has abandoned the notion that race exists as a matter of biology — precisely because of genetic studies. Argue with those pesky scientists.

Granted it exists as a political and social term, but it has no scientific meaning outside of those circles.

To expand on that, race is a trait that individuals have. It can influence them in many ways. It’s a trait that many people have in common, and those people may (or may not) also have some shared interests. But each of them is an individual, and it’s those people who have these interests; a race is not an entity, and can’t have interests.

To see what I mean, let’s talk about another trait that many people share: tallness. Tall people have a shared interest in, for instance, increasing leg room on planes, and they share that interest because they are tall. It’s not “heightist” to acknowledge this fact. And it’s absurd to claim that height doesn’t exist. But it’s equally absurd and wrong to treat “tall” as an entity with its own interests, and tall people as mere members of that entity. Tallness is a trait, not an identity. People either have it or they don’t, and they have it to varying degrees, but they remain individuals and can’t be treated as one glob of humanity.

You will notice that modern science has abandoned the notion that race exists as a matter of biology — precisely because of genetic studies. Argue with those pesky scientists.

That’s absurd. The claim that race doesn’t exist comes from political activism, not science. What you’re citing is merely science harnessed to a political end. Again, just look around you and you can see that race exists. Or ask any doctor.

Oh, and Pons, Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source for assessing the character of a person on the political right. Just because WP calls Spencer a racist doesn’t mean he is one. I have no problem deciding that he is one, but not because WP says so. Despite all the denials there is an admin cabal that controls WP with an iron fist; WP is reliable on topics this cabal doesn’t care about, but not on ones it cares very much about. Anyone of at least somewhat rightist views who has edited articles on such topics for at least a year will have seen the evidence of this cabal at work. None of which is meant to be a defense of Spencer.

One thing that really bothers me about the Trump campaign is that until now I’ve taken great delight in informing people that political violence in America is entirely a phenomenon of the left. Despite the lefty stereotype of the peaceful leftist and the violent rightist, it just hasn’t existed on the right. In Europe, maybe, but not in America, at least not in the past four or five decades. Until now. I can’t say it any more, because it’s no longer true. It’s no longer just the SEIU roughing people up.

That’s absurd. The claim that race doesn’t exist comes from political activism, not science. What you’re citing is merely science harnessed to a political end. Again, just look around you and you can see that race exists. Or ask any doctor.

race (rās)
n.
1. A group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group. Most biologists and anthropologists do not recognize race as a biologically valid classification, in part because there is more genetic variation within groups than between them.

Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptualizations of race are untenable, scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways, some of which have essentialist implications.[17] While some researchers sometimes use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race often is used in a naive[12] or simplistic way,[18][page needed] and argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance by pointing out that all living humans belong to the same species, Homo sapiens, and subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.[19][20]

Races may exist in humans in a cultural sense, but biological concepts of race are needed to access their reality in a non-species-specific manner and to see if cultural categories correspond to biological categories within humans. Modern biological concepts of race can be implemented objectively with molecular genetic data through hypothesis-testing. Genetic data sets are used to see if biological races exist in humans and in our closest evolutionary relative, the chimpanzee. Using the two most commonly used biological concepts of race, chimpanzees are indeed subdivided into races but humans are not.

…nope. How about these guys? “R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University, has written a number of books and articles on evolution and human variation, including Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA and The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment.” You know, scientists:

Over the last thirty five years a major change has taken place in our biological understanding of the concept of human “race,” largely as a consequence of an immense increase in our knowledge of human genetics. As a biological rather than a social construct, “race” has ceased to be seen as a fundamental reality characterizing the human species.

He’s also at the fore of a movement to establish a white homeland in North America, an effort he believes would improve the genetic quality of the human population, which he says is being diminished by the rise of minority births in the United States.

Milhouse you have some interesting similarities with A.R (my emphasis):

That may have formed part of the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, and the Soviet Revolution, but it’s also silly talk.

A.R. (688974) — 3/14/2016 @ 1:48 pm

—

By the way, the crown is the government, not the king. But yes, the declaration did blame the king for lots of things. Dishonestly. Much of the declaration was a load of cr*p. It’s propaganda, not philosophy.

That both of you do not think much of the Declaration of Independence makes quite a bit of sense, given your world views and stated philosophies. Logically, to maintain your belief systems, you both must reject the Declaration (albeit, you and him have divergent conclusions.)

It also means neither one of you “geniuses” needs to be taken seriously.

Depends– does an atom of C look different that an atom of C? Are they different? What if one is part of a hydrocarbon chain of gasoline and one is part of a diamond lattice? Both created equally (in the heart of a super nova), both different: gasoline/diamond.

No one is created equal. It’s an absurd concept. It’s basically also the principle behind communism.

Communism confuses equality with equal, as do you. Read:

*created equal
*created with equality

The latter statement is patently false, which we can both agree.

We are all created as human beings, and have equal Rights; thinks like speech, worship, weapons, etc. That does not mean we are entitled to wealth, education, opportunities, food, water, medicine, etc. Those things need to be earned or given.

The law is not suppose to be about fairness, but justice in a superior nation.

(Notice how skin color, or whatever construct one might use to create race never even came up.)

P.S. You realize our ancestors interbred with different Hominid subspecies, but not all races interbred with the same subspecies? That also adds to the diversity we have, over and above being geographically separated for tens of thousands of years in very different parts of the globe. Anyway, I imagine this is falling on deaf ears. That doesn’t make you right.

A.R. (f24dcf) — 3/15/2016 @ 1:06 am

Hahaha, you do realize that homo sapiens sapiens is our (sub) species right? Within our species the scientific concept of race has no meaning, according to the numerous scientific sources I linked.

Cruz, speaking to reporters on Monday, reiterated that he would support Trump in the general election, though he qualified it by saying, “I can give you one example where I would no longer support Donald Trump. If for example, he were to go out on 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, I would not be willing to support Donald Trump.”
I agree.

It’s nice to raise kids but it’s also nice to make a better world for them to live in. Their personal world and the world in general. You can look up the meaning of proletarian, but if you’ll take my word for it I can tell you that it means somebody who only produces children.

Comment 485. Time for Godwin. The Nazis believed in that s***. Women would get medals for producing children for the Reich. They even had brood programs where women would be confined and their job was to be baby machines.

#448 Aphrael — “At least *some* of his supporters believe it’s reasonable to divide Americans up into good and bad and threaten to treat the ‘bad’ Americans as *targets*. Yay?”

Democrats and the Left have been doing this since Woodrow Wilson. Please stop the sanctimony.

A Civil Right Acts in 1964 that lays the framework for reverse discrimination and allows for violations of the right to freely associate. Abortion. Not by vote but by diktat. Men can be women and flash my daughters in bathrooms.

Please. I could go on. Blame the offending party — the Left. Not the response.

“It’s hard *not* to look at the movement supporting Mr. Trump and see really terrible things.”

aphrael (e0cdc9) — 3/14/2016 @ 2:21 pm

aphrael… Interested in knowing what your take is on the criminality, illegal use of cabinet position for personal enrichment, etc. of Hillary Clinton and the outdated tribalism, victimhood, envy, class warfare strategy employed by Sanders. Are you okay with all of that? Only some of that?

So you’re saying after taking in between 20 and 40 million Mexicans since 1980 if we believe we should stop for a while we’re “scared of Mexicans”? After 40 million it’s a little late to be scared, isn’t it?

You’re also saying that knowing full well the “religion of peace” is no such thing but rather preaches and teaches the killing of Americans however, using the good sense God gave us not to move these barbarians next to our families means we’re also “scared” of them? So you somehow believe bringing over the very people who destroyed their own countries to our country is smart? You think that people who murder non-moslems and rape women are a good fit with American values? I think you’re wrong.

And knowing full well that all those Mexicans have not assimilated and all those moslems will never assimilate you stubbornly cling to the idea that bringing more in is smart? You sound like a raving idiot.

From yesterday’s Washington Examiner:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has revealed that 124 illegal immigrant criminals released from jail by the Obama administration since 2010 have been subsequently charged with murder.

Perhaps, like the proverbial liberal being mugged and turned into a conservative, you need to have someone you know murdered or raped by these people before you understand what you’re saying.

And a sugar-day by definition promises to get you “things” and that moniker fits both Hillary! and that commie Sander’s better than anybody. From “free” health care to “free” college they are the lying sugar-daddies.

Pons, you can cite all the political gobbledegook you like; the fact that you put what you read there over the evidence of your own senses tells me a lot about you. As I said, ask any doctor whether race exists. Every doctor knows that how you treat a patient depends on their race. Which doesn’t exist, of course, but nevertheless affects their health. Puzzle me that. It is perfectly obvious to all that race exists and is a useful concept; it’s less obvious but equally true that its use is limited. Racism basically consists of applying it beyond those limits. In a way it’s just an instance of the general problem of the misuse of statistics.

Of course, technically centrifugal force doesn’t exist, and yet it can be felt. For that matter a flame is a process, not an object, it has no substance, but only a fool denies that it’s there.

A.R. the statement in the declaration of independence that all men are created equal doesn’t mean they’re exactly alike, it means they’re equal in value. Equal before God and before the law. $1000 worth of gold and $1000 worth of diamond don’t look at all alike, but they are equal in value, and stealing each is exactly the same crime. The declaration says that a tall handsome white athlete with an IQ of 180 has the same value as an short ugly black cripple with an IQ of 70, that they’re both entitled to the same dignity, the same rights, the same respect, and the law must treat them exactly the same. Their differences are real, but not relevant.

I know how my musings must look but I was steeped in a lot of different religious experiences growing up.

Confirmed a Luthran then switched to an evangelical sect. All while going to a private school affiliated with Bob Jones University.

Since everyone is sharing, my paternal grandma raised six kids on a ranch and used to yank sheep testicals out with her teeth(look it up). So yay women.

I’m not trying to knock women here but I did just come up with another question: if Ted Cruz is elected president Heidi Cruz will have to put her career on hold for eight years. Does that mean its more important for Ted to be president than her to be an investment banker? Does that mean being an investment banker is more important than being a stay at home mom for eight years?

They can do what they want. If the Lord says,”you’ve done well, good and faithfull investment banker” then good on them. I guess they can lay their Goldman Sachs reserved parking placards at His feet.

Frankly I’m mocking them more in the universe of their worldview than in my own

Since HC doesn’t have hair down to her waist and wear denim skirts I think we can be safe in assuming that the Cruz’s are cultural Christians who haven’t got the whole gospel of drinking poison and handling serpents.

It’s not his divorces that need forgiving, but the adultery that preceded them. Nobody held Reagan’s divorce against him, because he did nothing wrong.

and some are going to be fine with Heidi Cruz working and hiring a nanny when they might have the means for her to raise her own children.

I have never come across a conservative who claimed that women must give up a career and stay home with the kids, if that’s not what they want to do. Yes, it’s good for the kids, but only if the woman wants to do it and doesn’t resent it.

Nobody wants to go back to when it was practically mandatory, and anyone who didn’t do it was looked down on; but at the same time the feminist reaction to that time was to reverse things and make leaving mandatory and staying home looked down on, which is just as bad. Both options involve sacrifice, each couple must decide for themselves which sacrifices to make, and their decision, whatever it is, needs to be respected equally.

At least *some* of his supporters believe it’s reasonable to divide Americans up into good and bad and threaten to treat the ‘bad’ Americans as *targets*. Yay?

Yay, aphrael. Just as Obama has divided Americans by saying things like: “you didn’t build that” and calling people “bitter clingers to their guns and bibles” or targeting certain jobs, businesses or groups for punishment by the IRS, NSA and others Trump seems to be a divider. Right now he doesn’t have the power to execute that ability so let’s keep it that way.

But the “dividing” of Americans into groups and “targeting” them is right out of Alinsky and has been hone to an art by the left in America. It is the left who turns poor against rich, black against whit, straight against gay, along with their constant pitting of one group against another they also use government power to punish and prosecute their foes and reward their followers.

Trump recognizes this because, unlike most people, he’s quite well versed in classic history and not indoctrinated into the flat-out impossibility of egalitarianism. That may have formed part of the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, and the Soviet Revolution, but it’s also silly talk. Evolution happened, and happens.

That was the argument of the defenders of slavery, also. They really likd Darwin’s “Origins of Species”

That brought about the Civil War, World War I (because religious beliefs no longer mattered, so war was not bad – at least in Germany – Communism (because of tha atheism it promoted) and fascism and Nazism and genocide.

Equality of rights is not silly talk – it is self evident, according to the Enlightenment, and taught by all religions. (with some exceptions for rotten culture. But all men do not have any fundamental differences.)

It means that I like Cruz’s way of securing our borders and our country and the way he’s getting the people’s support for his plan; and that I detest the way Trump is preying on people’s fears and prejudices.

•Border security is national security. We need to secure the border once and for all. We need to stop Obama’s amnesty and enforce the rule of law. And we need to reform legal immigration to protect American workers.
•It’s not that we don’t know how to solve illegal immigration. What is missing is the political will to get it done. As President, Ted Cruz will do what he says. He will stop illegal immigration. He will build a wall that works, triple border security, and put in place the surveillance and biometric tracking to secure the border.
•Ted Cruz will end Obama’s amnesty on day one, will end catch-and-release, increase deportations, stop sanctuary policies, and strengthen E-verify.
•In order to protect our national security and serve American workers, he will suspend and audit H-1B visas and halt any increase in legal immigration so long as American unemployment remains unacceptably high.
•Cruz led the fight in Congress to defeat the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, he has introduced strong legislation to stop illegal immigration, and he has outlined a detailed immigration plan to protect Americans.

#497
Pons, you can cite all the political gobbledegook you like; the fact that you put what you read there over the evidence of your own senses tells me a lot about you. As I said, ask any doctor whether race exists. Every doctor knows that how you treat a patient depends on their race. Which doesn’t exist, of course, but nevertheless affects their health. Puzzle me that. It is perfectly obvious to all that race exists and is a useful concept; it’s less obvious but equally true that its use is limited. Racism basically consists of applying it beyond those limits. In a way it’s just an instance of the general problem of the misuse of statistics.

Of course, technically centrifugal force doesn’t exist, and yet it can be felt. For that matter a flame is a process, not an object, it has no substance, but only a fool denies that it’s there.

Milhouse (87c499) — 3/15/2016 @ 8:11 am

Mils, Mils, Mils…okay let’s begin…

Pons, you can cite all the political gobbledegook you like;…

Hahaha, you didn’t read them did you, lol:

* The online Medical Dictionary
* National Center for Biotechnology Information
* R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University
* and, just because you love it so, Wikipedia (which might be tough because of all those pesky citations)

Don’t hate me because I source, hahaha…for reals Mils (hey, that rhymes), make friends with sourcing, not enemies.

Many questions about race have been asked by scientists over the generations. It is not until recently, with the advent of genetic mapping, that scientists could actually try to determine what race is in a fundamental way. Several studies done with different approaches have all yielded similar results. Comparing the genetic variations of races in other species and then looking for similar variation in the human race ended up with ZERO meaningful results by any standard criteria used with other species. By any reasonable biological measure, we modern day humans do not have multiple races.

The neat thing about science is that its results must be reproducible regardless of the politics of the scientist. Those results must then be published in peer reviewed magazines. When independent studies conducted by different scientists, sometimes using different methods or approaches, get similar results — well, it becomes a strong theory.

Now c’mon Mils, we have more work to do…

—

Every doctor knows that how you treat a patient depends on their race. Which doesn’t exist, of course, but nevertheless affects their health. Puzzle me that.

Yeah, Milhouse, you really should read the citations, lol. It turns out family history is a much more reliable indicator when it comes to screening for certain diseases; ancestry is what matters, because the genes that makes one prone to specific diseases are — wait for it — inherited.

Now a doctor might use race, as it is socially constructed, as a convenient shortcut to guess at your family ancestry, but by no meaningful definition do such genes make you a different race, which if you bothered to read any of the scientific sources, you would not be so puzzled.

For example (yes, I know, you hate scientific sources, but try):

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/sicklecell/traits.html
People who inherit one sickle cell gene and one normal gene have sickle cell trait (SCT). People with SCT usually do not have any of the symptoms of sickle cell disease (SCD), but they can pass the trait on to their children.

How Sickle Cell Trait is Inherited

– If both parents have SCT, there is a 50% (or 1 in 2) chance that any child of theirs also will have SCT…
– If both parents have SCT, there is a 25% (or 1 in 4) chance that any child of theirs will have SCD…

Note: nothing about race, just inheritance. If you had SCT, then your family ancestry likely traces to a place where those genes evolved to battle malaria, but that does not make you a different race, biologically.

Alright Mils, almost done, hang in there…

—

…the fact that you put what you read there over the evidence of your own senses tells me a lot about you.

Haha, I am sure it does, Mils, lol. No doubt it speaks to you, haha. You know things.

—

Careful Milhouse, you are not accurate:
Pons said: “Human races are not real in any scientific sense.”
Milhouse said: “[race] Which doesn’t exist…”

I also explicitly said race exists as political and social constructs.

There is no good evidence of any biological distinctions that would allow for multiple races of modern man, using the exact same criteria as with other species that do have multiple races (lol, see the half dozen or so links.)

Ay-yi-yi, you’re getting sloppy. C’mon Mils, you’re better than this.

—

For that matter a flame is a process, not an object, it has no substance, but only a fool denies that it’s there.

A.R. the statement in the declaration of independence that all men are created equal doesn’t mean they’re exactly alike, it means they’re equal in value. Equal before God and before the law. $1000 worth of gold and $1000 worth of diamond don’t look at all alike, but they are equal in value, and stealing each is exactly the same crime.

Milhouse (87c499) — 3/15/2016 @ 8:11 am

WTH? Are you messing with me…you are, aren’t you Mils. Nobody could possibly…

The declaration says that a tall handsome white athlete with an IQ of 180 has the same value as an short ugly black cripple with an IQ of 70, that they’re both entitled to the same dignity, the same rights, the same respect, and the law must treat them exactly the same.

Lol, geez Milhouse…well it explains why you think the Declaration is mostly, how’d you put it: “a load of cr*p.” I’d agree with you if that is what the Declaration said.

—

Milhouse, I give you credit for trying, but truly you don’t have to try so hard. The Declaration means just what it says.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We are all created with certain Rights: explicitly listed as, but not limited to, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We are all equal in that regard, we all have these Rights upon our creation.

[My comment is caught in the filter (probably to many links.) Let me try this (apologies if this ends up double posting):]

A.R. the statement in the declaration of independence that all men are created equal doesn’t mean they’re exactly alike, it means they’re equal in value. Equal before God and before the law. $1000 worth of gold and $1000 worth of diamond don’t look at all alike, but they are equal in value, and stealing each is exactly the same crime.

Milhouse (87c499) — 3/15/2016 @ 8:11 am

WTH? Are you messing with me…you are, aren’t you Mils. Nobody could possibly…

The declaration says that a tall handsome white athlete with an IQ of 180 has the same value as an short ugly black cripple with an IQ of 70, that they’re both entitled to the same dignity, the same rights, the same respect, and the law must treat them exactly the same.

Lol, geez Milhouse…well, at least this explains why you think the Declaration is mostly, how’d you put it: “a load of cr*p.” I’d agree with you if that is what the Declaration said.

—

Milhouse, I give you credit for trying, but truly you don’t have to try so hard. The Declaration means just what it says.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We are all created with certain Rights: explicitly listed as, but not limited to, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We are all equal in that regard, we all have these Rights upon our creation.

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